UBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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FAST-DAY 






B E R ]M O ]Nr , 



DELIVERED BEFOKE THE UNITED 



COEREGATIONAL AP BAPTIST SOCIETIES, 



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REV. EDWIN S. BEARD 



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AVarreii, >re.. A.pril SO, l«Oo. 



rUBLISHED BY JiEQVEST. 






R O C K L A N D : 
JOHN rORTKK & CO., PRINTER?!, 



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FAST-DAY 



© E R m: O N 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNITED 



CONGREGATIONAL AND BAPTIST SOCIETIES, 



BT 



REV. EDWIN S. BEARD. 



AT 



"Warren, 9Xe., ^prll SO, 1866. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST, 



ROCKLAND : 

JOHN POETEK & CO., PRINTERS, 

1866. 




FAST-DAY SERMON. 



Text— 1 Chron. 29 chap., 11 to 13th verses inclusive : "Thine, O Lord, is the gre&t- 
n«ss, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty, for all that is in 
heaven and in the earth are thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted 
as head above all. Both riches and honor come of thee, and thou reignest over all; 
and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all. Now, therefore, 
our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name." 

I will not explain my text ; its mere announcement is its own 
elucidation. I will come right to the heart of my subject, and 
mention the causes, we, as citizens of this nation, have for 
thanksgiving to God to-day. And, in the first place, we ought 
to thank God that we have a government. A large and power- 
ful host of our own fellow-citizens rose up against us, for the 
purpose of destroying our institutions, or at the least, of per- 
petuating and establishing those of their own, foreign to tfte 
genius and spirit of our National union. This design was one 
that was cherished for a generation of men, and in furtherance 
of it, plans were matured, and studied preparations made in 
secret. This plot to ruin a country, whose policy they could 
not control, was so adroitly concealed, that it was not discov- 
ered till it was wholly perfected. This want of discernment on 
the part of the American people, was not owing to stupidity. 
It was not thought possible, that men could be found in this 
enlightened age, infamous enough to seek to destroy the wisest 
and most beneficent government on which the sun shone, and 
neither our rulers, chief men, or the masses of the people 
would have entertained for a moment the suspicion, that those 
of our own flesh and blood would betray and slay us. What 
was unsuspected was unprovided for. Arrangements for thg 
dissolution of the Union were fully completed, before the people 
were aware that the first step had been taken. Those, on whom 
were bestowed the highest honors, in the gift of the people, 
took advantage of the confidence reposed in them, by scheming 
for the extinction of the nation's life. Under the cover of a 
purpose of guarding more firmly the bulwarks of our laud, they 



gecurcd the possession and control of our arsenals and forts, in 
order that they might inaugurate their contemplated rebellion 
with the fairest promises of success. Tell it not in Gath, pub- 
lish it not in Ascalon, lest the lost spirits of despair should tri- 
umph. Yes, children nursed with tenderest care, snatch the 
assassin's knife to pierce the heart of the mother ! It is a high 
compliment to the genius of our Christianity, that the vast 
body of the people were so pervaded with that charity, which 
thinketh no evil, that they could not conceive traitorous senti- 
ments possible to any considerable number of American citi- 
zens, especially those of broadest culture and intellect. The 
public, unprepared in mind for such developments, had erect- 
ed no safeguards against their outward manifestations. — 
The war was commenced on the part of our opponents, 
with most decided auguries of victory. They had an organized 
army. We had none. Ammunition and arms were with them, 
and those of the best quality. They had a military character 
as a natural inheritance, vastly improved by a training which 
superior leisure allowed them in diverse ways. They had, also, 
the advantage of fighting on their own ground ; in their own 
territory, which placed them in the attitude of defence, with all 
interior lines of communication at command. Though ostensi- 
bly the war was waged for self-protection, its real intent and 
purpose was to dethrone the established law and order of things 
and substitute in their place a Confederation of States, whose 
magisterial influence should be given to the support of an aris- 
tocracy. With all these prestiges of success, they have miser- 
ably failed. Thank God for this. The government which our 
Fathers founded, still stands, — its foundations all the stronger 
for this test of its strength. The Sun of the Union still stands, 
full-orbed, in mid-heavens, there to remain, and only the 
brighter to shine till the day of doom. Not a star is erased 
from the National banner, not ii stripe is polluted. Glory to 
God for this ! Hallelujah ! hallujah ! Amen ! Amen ! Blessed 
be thou, Lord God of battles, forever and ever! Thine, O 
Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the 
victory, and the majesty, for all that is in the heaven and in the 
earth are thine ; thine is the kingdom, Lord, and thou art 



exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come of thee, 
and thou reignest over all ; and in thine hand is power and 
might ; and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give 
strength unto all. Now, therefore, our God, we thank thee, 
and praise thy glorious name. But, to be more specific, we 
thank God for the vindication of the nation's honor, in the 
establishment of constitutional liberty. And, in order that the 
motives for gratitude may press with greatest weight upon us, 
let us attempt some analysis of it. Institutional self-govern- 
ments are of modern origin. Previous to the establishment of 
ours, all had failed. Our wise and great men, searching out 
the hidden causes of their decline and decay, and perceiving 
that the ruin of these republics could not be rightly attributed 
to unsoundness of principle ; but to defects in the character of 
the people, were incited to lay again on these old foundations, 
with a thoughtful provision incorporating on the body politic 
institutions which should secure that individual development, 
the lack of which had made free government hitherto impossible. 
Constitutional monarchies secured all the main checks and 
guarantees of personal freedom ; but the Puritans sought to 
infuse elements in American liberty yet unattained. The trial 
by jury, the representative government, the common law, self- 
taxation, the submission of the army to the legislature, were all 
features of English liberty. To American liberty there was 
added the features of a federal republic, separation of Church 
and State, more individual responsibility, greater freedom of 
action. To secure this bi'oader personal liberty, our Fathers 
formed the Constitution of the United States. This Constitu- 
tion, embodying our common sentiments respecting the rights 
and liberties of man, was the bond of the federal Union. To 
renounce allegiance to this, from the very nature of the case, 
was disorganizing, and if persisted in, would end in its dissolu- 
tion. And what did dissolution of the Union imply ? Here we 
were, substantially one people, exulting in the name, American 
—prouder of that than of any other designation. "We were a 
happy family of States, with local self-governments, yet revolv- 
ing around our national, representative government as one com- 
mon centre. This consolidation of power gave security to our 



commerce, protectiou to all those employments that ennoble and 
dignify man, permanence to our institutions of learning, free- 
dom from . national bankruptcy, facilit}^ of communication 
between different sections, means of defence against foreign 
foes. All the arts that enrich and beautify life were fostered 
and encouraged ; the light of science cast its illumination over 
the land, making its beneficent influence felt in the cottages of 
the poor, as well as the mansions of the rich. The amplest op- 
portunity w^as offered to the humblest to aspire to all of which 
humanity was capable, or should be. Upon all this busy indus- 
try and raried pursuit, religion poured its mellowing and chast- 
ening light, linking us in the bonds of an universal brother- 
hood. 

I, as giving expression to your feelings, would rejoice that 
this prosperous scene, for a brief interregnum interrupted, is to 
be continued ; j^es, more than this, there are to be added touches 
of beauty by the Great Limner's hand. The fate of civilization, 
of humanity, of religion, were all involved in the preservation of 
the Union. Not only were the hopes and liberties of the Amer- 
ican nation at stake, but those of all mankind. Here was the 
question being settled — whether men were capable of self-gov- 
ernment, and yet be subject to government. The question was 
being decided w^hether government was a boon to the people, or 
a boon granted by the people ; whether the people were made 
for the government, or the government for the people. To state 
the issue tersely, and all comprehensively — whether man is man 
however low in the social scale, entrusted by God with destinies 
and responsibilities, both for this world, and the world to come, 
for the fulfilment of which the law of his nature teaches him 
there shall be no interferance on the part of the government, or 
any class with select privileges, or the masses of the people. 

According to the ancient idea of liberty in republics, the 
highest idea of humanity was reached in citizenship. But in 
the broad light of Christianity, a man reaches his full develop- 
ment, only when he stands erect in the majesty of a complete 
manhood. Such a glorious result cannot be reached, except one 
is untrammelled and unshackled in every course of action to 
which his taste and genius incline, and his God invites him. 



For the attainment of this, Government is but the means to an 
end. Every man should be free to act well his part in life ; be 
summoned to all the privileges and immunities of political life, 
and be held in equal honor with every other man. It is a narrow 
view of this contest, to consider it, simply as deciding whether 
African slavery should live and reign, or die on this continent. 
The grand conflict of the past four years has been a contest 
between aristocracy and democracy. Shall the governing body 
be a few men, who, by birth and fortune, judge themselves the 
best men in the State to control its affairs, or shall all who are 
governed have equal responsibility and share in the government ? 
This was the issue proposed by our opponents. Speaking 
loosely, we may with somewhat of propriety, designate the 
struggle as one between freedom and slavery. Nevertheless, 
the fact that the South were slaveholders, was a merely incidental 
truth in the struggle. But as an aristocracy could not maintain 
itself in this country without the ownership of human beings as 
a basis, the contest of aristocracy or no aristocracy became, 
under the guiding hand of Providence, (who led us in a way we 
knew not,) a contention on the part of the southern portion of 
the country for the establishment and perpetuation of the slave 
system. On the part of the North, it was a struggle for the 
self-preservation of the nation. And here again, the salvation 
of the Union was the life of freedom. God has so over-ruled 
affairs, as to bring about the highest wishes of the philanthro- 
pist. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good 
will to men ! 

I am now prepared for my second cause of rejoicing — which, 
no doubt, you have already anticipated — viz : the removal of 
the curse of slavery from our fair land ; but on this topic, my 
friends, I find the emotions swelling the heart too big for utter- 
ance. Words are tame expressions of the bounding feelings of 
joy. For this result, for long and weary years, I have prayed. 
In early youth my daily 'prayer was "How long shall the 
oppressor triumph." How did my little heart burst with 
indignation at him who could take pleasure in binding a man in 
chains. My generous impulses, when yet a boy, drew my heart 
out in sympathy with that hated and despised, but now univers- 



8 

ally honored class, the Abolitionists. When I heard men rise 
up to the noble independence to declare that they would not vote 
for a slaveholder, I longed to be a man, that I might rise to the 
sublimity of such moral heroism. My moral instincts were 
pure, as God gave them. The moral sense of every child is 
shocked and outraged at the idea of slavery. I felt for the slave 
whose back was imaged forth before me, stained with scars and 
blood. I wept over him. As I saw, in imagination, families 
sundered, fathers from children, husband from wife, brothers 
from sisters, my sympathies were stretched to the intensest 
bearing. As I beheld pure and lovely woman with no crime but 
a skin not colored like her master's, dragged beneath the chariot 
wheels of lust, I cried unto God for vengeance and recompense. 
As I drank in the light of knowledge as free as air, and saw it 
falling on all around with saving, cheering power, how sad- 
dened became the soul as the eye wandered down the Southern 
horizon, to see the night of ignorance settling down on four 
millions of human beings, endowed with the same rights and 
liberties as myself, and heirs with me of the same immortal 
destiny. To see a man a mere beast of burden, his mind all 
undeveloped, uncared for, and every attempt at self-improvement 
met with the lash, even the light of everlasting truth shut out 
from it, (which would have made his burdensome life tolerable, 
inasmuch as it would have revealed the land where the prisoners 
rest together, and hear not the voice of the oppressor, and 
where the servant is free from his master,) was a pitiable sight 
indeed. "With the culture of the intellect deemed a crime, the 
reading of God's word a fault to be severely punished, what 
could the life of the slave be but a living death? My heart 
yearned toward the outcast, and him that had no helper ; and I 
cried, great and terrible God, who executest righteousness and 
judgment, thou surely givest thy people tears to drink in great 
measure ; will thou cast them off forever ? How long will thou 
be angry at the cry of the bondman ? I thank God that this 
stain on our national honor is to be erased ; that the nation, or 
rather the God of nations, is decreeing that no sinner, bloody 
with the guilt of human oppression, shall be unmolested ; but 
if persisting in his purpose, shall feel the strong arm of the 



law, and the stronger power of a public sentiment, which shall 
make his very name execrable in the view of every honest citi- 
zen. I thank God, to use the words of the immortal Webster, 
for the prospect that no more in any northern city "shall we 
hear the sound of the hammer, or see the smoke of the furnaces 
where manacles and chains are forged for human limbs." I 
praise God for the reason I have to hope that I have witnessed 
the last national public humiliation of a northern army sustained 
by northern sentiment, (yet under protest for virtue shocked and 
justice outraged,) in the rendering back to bondage a slave so 
fortunate as to escape. No more fugitive slave laws ! Thank God 
that slavery is dead ! It has been the source and fountain of 
barbarism, inhumanity, and irreligion. And to secure the 
wiping out of the last vestige of it there has been in the prov- 
idence of God such a revelation of its true spirit and animus, 
as to create against it a unanimous public sentiment. God has 
permitted it to reach its culmination in the heaven-daring crime 
of taking the life of the head of the nation, thus thrusting the 
knife of the assassin at the heart of thirty millions of people. 

I thank God for imparting to our soldiers the patience, forti- 
tude, and self-sacrifice which have been necessary to ensure this 
victory. God put it into their hearts to leave homes of peace 
and luxury, and the embrace of dear ones, to sleep in the hard 
barrack, to tramp on the weary march, to lay in trenches beneath 
'the peltings of the storm, to fall on the battle-field, to die a 
living death in prisons. These were men — noble, high-minded 
men. How insensible to hardship, how impervious to pain ; 
how jubilant in suffering, singing even in the stern hour, halle- 
lujahs, that they were worthy to suffer for their country. There 
is scarcely a household where there is not some one dead, and a 
light in a happy home gone out forever. But what comfort have 
weeping friends ! Weep not for me ! is the echo from the new- 
made grave ; but for yourselves, that you have been but idle 
spectators in a struggle so fruitful in honor and glory. We died 
for the salvation of our native land — for the freedom of mankind. 
And when this nation shall come out of its stern disasters, 
regenerated and redeemed, it will be a consolation for j'ou to 
know that you have given up so costly an offering for your 



10 

country's weal ; and not only that, but a world's happiness. The 
gift of freedom is so great a blessing that hardly any sacrifice 
can be too great to achieve the inestimable treasure. We, the 
survivors of this contest, will hold in grateful remembrance all 
these toils, privations, dangers, and teach our children to 
reverence your memory as sacred. You shall live as long as the 
American Union shall stand, in the enduring characters which 
your deeds of self-denial and acts of self-forgetfulness have 
written on our hearts. 

Again, I would thank God for the freedom of the white man, 
wrought ^out by the recent victories. Slavery, with that dom- 
ineering spirit so peculiar to itself, has exercised such a tyranny 
over public opinion, that whosoever dare open his lips in 
disapprobation of it, must be straightway hung, drawn and 
quartered. And where it did not control State laws, by its 
threatening aspect, it so governed the sentiment of the nation, 
that a man's very bread depended on the silence he might 
maintain respecting this institution. The commerce of our 
Northern cities was largely interested in its gains. Our public 
men, dependant for promotion on the favor of the merchant 
princes, become eager compromisors between the conflicting 
interests. The press relying on public patronage was muzzled. 
Every pressure was brought to bear on the pulpit, through tlie 
threatened withdrawal of support, to give its solemn sanction to 
the iniquity and be false to its trust. Wherever a preacher was 
found bold enough to utter the thunders of God's violated law 
against the sin, he was accused of stepping out of his sphere 
and preaching politics. The right of the pulpit to apply the 
truths of the Gospel to the sphere of morality was stoutly 
denied. Christ, and him crucified, must be its only theme. In 
too many instances, it is to be feared, that the ministers of God 
quit their high station, and truckled to their vicious opinions. 
So debauched and vitiated had public sentiment become, that 
those who occupied the sacred desk, and were true to a high 
Christian morality, found no response in the pews ; but a hearty 
and indignant dissent. 

This withholding of unshaken moral convictions on the part 
of the ministry, sapped the very foundation of manly character 



11 

and made them the mere tools of their congregation. And 
when a man's manhood has gone, he might as well be under the 
sod as above it. I thank God that this victory of freedom over 
slaver}^ has given freedom to the white man. Men will not 
pray and speak hereafter, with studied circumlocution, watching 
well the door of their lips lest a word about the rights of the 
slave should be hinted at. And not only will speakers be true 
to their nation and their God, but the people will appreciate 
their sentiments of justice, humanity and religion. Thank God 
for a regenerated pulpit. Its eloquence and strength is in its 
independence. My tone thus far has been one of rejoicing. 

So rapid is the succession of public events, that a proclama- 
tion for a fast, dated three weeks before its observance, loses 
very much of its pertinency, because before we fasted and 
humbled ourselves, God heard our prayers. If it be said that 
we need a fast to prepare us for the great and solemn duties 
before us, it is well said. But a true fast implies thankfulness, 
and thankfulness, penitence. The goodness of God is the 
most powerful influence, leading men to repentance. For this 
reason, m}' friends, I have adopted the jubilant strain that I 
have. But I could not fail to notice, that the cup of rejoicing 
is mingled with drops of sorrow. And not a note of gladness 
that swells the heart to-day will there be, which will not be 
chastened with a strain of sadness. The President of our 
republic is no more ! He, on whom we leaned to guide our 
ship of State, over swelling billows of adversity, to the port of 
rest and securit}'-, has gone down to his grave, and he shall 
never return to us. Having escaped the rocks and quicksands 
of the troublous ocean, as a nation, through his guiding hand 
under Divine Providence, and just in full view of the haven, 
and tuning our lips to sing — safe, safe at last, our pilot while at 
the helm is dislodged from his position by a topmost wave, 
higher than any before, and he is engulphed in the dark waters. 
We trusted in him as the only one who could redeem our 
beloved nation. He had always done the right thing, in just 
the right time. A people before jubilant and exultant with 
heart and tongue, filled with rejoicing, sink to a depression of 
spirits as correspondiDgly low as their previous hopefulness had 



12 

made them confident. But in this affliction we may rejoice. 
We are commanded to rejoice in tribulation. God is nearer to 
a nation in trial's hour, than at any other time. It is then he 
clothes them with garments of praise. Even now, we seem to 
get a glimpse of God's merciful designs — a little light behind 
the cloud — giving reason to us to be thankful to the Lord God, 
and bless his name. Though apparently our dangers were past, 
as a nation, in reality they were just at hand. There was a 
wisdom, firmness, and courage to be displayed in the recon- 
struction of our national Union, which even the stern necessi- 
ties of war have not demanded. Though Mr. Lincoln, thus far, 
as our leader, had performed his part admirabl}^, it may, with 
somewhat of reason, be questioned whether he would have been 
equal to future emergencies ; aud if unequal, may not his 
departure have been in mercy to himself, and for the redemp- 
tion of a nation. The care of his position had already made 
his life a personal burden, and he longed to fly away and be at 
rest. He had a presentiment that he should not outlive the 
rebellion ; but for the nation's sake he desired to assume for the 
second time, the high trust of leadership of the American peo- 
ple. He stands now on the heights of glory and honor above, 
amid the effulgence of eternal da}-. No sound shall awake him 
to glory again. There the wicked cease from troubling, and 
the haggard and care-worn are at rest. No venomous tongue 
of slander shall reach him there. His kind heart, we have rea- 
son to believe, would have led him to err on the side of mag- 
nanimity, in his future policy as au executive, and that element 
of character for which we honor him as au individual, might 
have proved the nation's weakness. At any rate, I believe that 
God has taken him away, and he has done it for his good, and 
the good of the nation. Though personally, I feel that I have 
lost a friend, the nation a father, and the oppressed a bene- 
factor, 3'et will I rejoice in God to-da3^ 

And yet again, we may congratulate ourselves on the proba- 
ble future of our country. The sun of liberty is to rise upon 
us, and never set. Our people have risen in their great might 
and their chains have dropped off. States belligerent and dis- 
cordant are to be at peace. Physically, face to face, as we 



13 

have always been, lake linking lake, and ocean, ocean, we are 
now to be united in a more intimate relation than those of geo- 
graphical bonds. "We are to be united heart to heart, and hand 
to hand, as never before, America's noble band of brothers. 
The wastes of war shall be repaired ; white-winged commerce 
shall float over every sea, without any to dispute its sway ; the 
husbandman shall sit under his own vine and fig tree, reaping 
the full fruit of his toil ; the mechanic lay aside his musket and 
sword, and hie to his busy workshop, and task his genius to 
save men's lives rather than to destroy them ; the lawyer every- 
where plead for the things that are just and equal ; the physi- 
cian minister only to those who go down gently into the dark 
valley ; the man of God plead with hearts unsullied by the 
vices of the camp. I see fields of smiling harvests, bending 
under the reaper's hand, every mart of business filled with 
traffic, the thronging crowds of men, pressed with remunerative 
work, homes of beauty and luxury everywhere dotting the hori- 
zon, our oxen strong to labor, no breaking in, or going out, no 
complaining in our streets. But a far happier sight than this I 
'see. It is brothers fighting again, yes, fighting again — do not 
fear what I may say — fighting not with sword, but with the pen 
winning victory. Yes, all alike inspired with the love of lib- 
erty, and battling for it with the tongue. 

Trusting in the God of might, 
Turning not their backs for flight, 
But, soldiers for the right 

Facing the coward foe. 
Hurling error from its throne. 
Truth's bright banner waving o'er them : 
• Putting ignorance to shame, 
Striving with a heaven-ward aim 

For the good of man. 

Our sons North, South, East and West, grown up as plants ; 
our daughters, as corner stones polished after the similitude of 
a palace. I see the nation arise from its baptism of blood, 
clothed in the garments of a regenerated humanity. I see the 
oppressed and down- trodden of all nations, crowding their tem- 
ple gates of liberty ; or else lighting their torch at our lamp. 
My soul kindles with rapture at the sight. I see all mankind 



u 

debtors to us, and with joyful acclaim greeting us, I see that 
flag, that dear old flag, standing in mid-heavens, pure and se- 
rene, unstained by bloody scars, "stripes and bars," bearing 
justice as its symbol, binding no man in chains, rising higher 
and higher, over hill and vale, waving the motto of the free. 
Union and Liberty. Gird 3'ou, christian men and women, that 
you may be counted worthy of such a citizenship. Be much in 
prayer ; rejoice, with trust in God ; be thankful unto him and 
bless his name. With four millions of brothers added to our 
number, let us rally round the flag once again, shouting the 
battle cry of civilization, humanity and religion. 



18 



LIBRARY OF CONGRtbi. 



012 047 396 7 # 




HoUing 

pH8.f 

Mill Run F2 



, .oRARY OF CONGRESS 

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012 047 396 7 % 
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Hollinger 

pH8.5 

Mill Run F3-1 955 



